Welcome to Euractiv’s Tech Brief, your weekly update on all things digital in the EU. Following the winter holidays, this issue provides an overview of the main developments since the Christmas break. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.

Can the EU be a truly global player? In 2023 it surely attempted to do so, with limited success, as it had to grapple with the challenge of juggling multiple crises while looking to project its influence to neighbours and partners.

In a bid to soothe farmers protests, the German government has announced changes to its hard-won budget compromise, which will see some subsidies for farmers kept and a fund for marine protection slashed.

Ukraine said on Thursday (4 January) its air force conducted a strike on a Russian command post near the occupied city of Sevastopol more than 200 km from Kyiv-held territory, and hit a military unit in a separate strike on the Crimean peninsula.

The Ukrainian embassy in Italy asked the city of Modena on Thursday (4 January) to withdraw its approval for the use of a civic hall to host an event about Russia's reconstruction of the war-wrecked city of Mariupol.

With Aline Blankertz, Policy and Public Sector Officer at Wikimedia, we have a look at the big events that happened in the areas of data policy and competition in 2023 and discuss the EU's future and biggest challenges for 2024.

President Vladimir Putin issued a decree on Thursday (4 January) allowing foreign nationals who fight for Russia in Ukraine to obtain Russian citizenship for themselves and their families.

Islamic State claimed responsibility on Thursday (4 January) for two explosions in Iran that killed nearly 100 people and wounded scores at a memorial for top commander Qassem Soleimani.

Russia recently used short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) sourced from North Korea to conduct multiple strikes against Ukraine, the White House said on Thursday (4 January), citing newly declassified intelligence.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Thursday (4 January) called the eurozone's bailout fund "obsolete", saying Italy's failure to ratify a reform of the system was an opportunity to make it "more efficient".

Healthcare-associated infections seem to be much higher in Sweden than in most of Europe and the country needs to step up the combat against this problem, according to infectious disease experts.

The political struggle for control of the large state hospitals in Bulgaria is becoming a risk factor for the government, which is supported by a broad but unstable tripartite coalition in the National Assembly.

Two years after the tragic unrest of January 2022 that resulted in 200 deaths, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev described the events as an attempted coup organised by a “group of high-ranking officials” with the help of “terrorists who arrived from outside”.

Russian hackers were inside Ukrainian telecoms giant Kyivstar's system from at least May last year in a cyberattack that should serve as a "big warning" to the West, Ukraine's cyber spy chief told Reuters.

South Korean and US troops have conducted joint combat firing drills near the border with North Korea involving heavy weapons, as Pyongyang lambasted the allies for dangerous moves pushing the region to the brink of "an inferno of nuclear war."

Junior doctors in England started a six-day walkout over pay on Wednesday (3 January), the longest strike in the 75-year history of the state-run National Health Service (NHS), which will hit patient care during a seasonal winter peak in demand.

Ukraine and Russia on Wednesday (3 January) announced their first exchange of prisoners of war in nearly five months, with more than 200 freed by each side after what both said was a complex negotiation involving mediation by the United Arab Emirates.

Iran blamed Israel and the United States on Wednesday (3 January) for twin bomb blasts that killed at least 95 people in the country's south, ripping through a crowd commemorating Revolutionary Guards general Qasem Soleimani four years after his death in a US strike.

This tumultuous year in EU politics started with investigations and arrests of MEPs implicated in the Qatargate scandal and ended with lawmakers agreeing on reforms to stiffen the bloc’s migration policies. Still, our most-read story dealt with an issue that most Brussels politicos thought had been left behind. 

A German local court has opened a regular insolvency proceeding against communications technology company Gigaset AG, Europe's market leader for wireless phones, raising questions as to how - or whether - the struggling company will be restructured.